- Nprn: 6252
- Cadw Ref: 21/B/16(2)
- Cadw Record No: 9701
- Summary: Bethel Chapel was built in 1820, and rebuilt in 1869, to the design of architect Thomas Thomas of Landore. The chapel is built in the Sub-Classical and Simple Round-Headed style of the gable entry type. By 1995 the chapel was in such a state of disrepair services had to be held in the vestry, and by 2000 the chapel had been converted into flats. The building is Grade 2 listed.
RCAHMW, June 2009. - Description: The chapel was built in 1820, and rebuilt or merely remodellled in 1869 (date plaque), possibly to the design of Rev.Thomas Thomas. The schoolroom was added ca. 1900. Built in the Sub-Classical and Simple Round-Headed style, gable entry type. Status (1995) chapel disused (dry rot etc.) and services in vestry. Status (2000) residential (2003): flats and funeral directors.
From evidence of date plaque, built 1820 and rebuilt 1869; possibly merely remodelled in 1869 to the design of The Reverend Thomas Thomas of Landore; a few early-C20 fittings; doubtless other repairs and alterations. Detached vestry linked to former chapel house on SE.; large forecourt on E. With entries from SE. by vestry, and from Church Lane. Both for itself and for its group value with the Court House, a prominent landmark in the townscape. The Vestry is now used for services as the Chapel is disused and up for sale (dry rot in gallery and fungal outbreaks). The chapel house has been sold. The chapel was converted into flats in 2000 (Orbach).
Chapel has three-bay stucco façade to E. With centre entry. Pale beige/peach painted render with deeper colour to quoins and dressings. Slate roof with gablet vents. In front façade, end quoins and quoins to projecting centre bay rise to moulded cornice. Plain parapet over end bays; cill band also in end bays, both cill band and cornice continuing round side elevations. Semi-circular window openings. End windows of two lights and six panes depth with two additional quadrant lights in the head; pilasters, moulded archivolts and vermiculated keystones. Similar dressings to centre bay openings. One concrete step before paired semi-circular headed doorways with two separate steps below each pair of doors, the doors of two moulded panels with arched heads. A graduated triplet window over, the taller centre window light with glazed circlet and spandrels in the head; all three window lights with archivolts and keystones as to end windows. Above the cornice, a pedimental feature with narrow, flat top crowned by urn with obelisk and ball finials; stepped sides with scrolled acroteria. Shaped plaque with rebated angles reads "Bethel /Adeiladwyd 1820 /Ailadeiladwyd /1869". Side elevations each with 4 tall semi-circular headed window openings, unadorned, but with the windows as in the end front bays; translucent glass, replaced in part with frosted glass; vents below with wide metal grilles. 2 similar windows to rear wall.
Vestibule interior: probably early-20th century encaustic tile floor; primrose-painted plaster walls above an orange-brown skirting. White-painted frames to windows and doors. Raked white-painted plaster ceiling. External doors with C19 locks and bolts. Inner vestibule wall with C19 rectilinear window of two lights in centre, and chapel entrance doors in canted sides. Window with blue margin panes and angle blocks, framing etched glass panes, including larger intersecting lozenge panes in centre. Flanking doors lined with orange felt, with drawing pins arranged as gilt panels; narrower inner doors. Wide gallery stairs without handrail at each end of vestibule; a C19 single-light rectilinear window of translucent glass on each inner stair wall, taller but of same pattern as two-light vestibule window below. Gallery stairs each have ten steps to turn; above the turn, one step and six-panel gallery door (moulded panels in two tiers); 10 steps above in stopped and chamfered panel enclosure.
Chapel interior: beige-painted matchboarded dado. Primrose-painted plaster walls; window openings with chamfered jambs, with cream /white-painted splayed reveals with sloping orange-brown cills; white-painted window frames with half-mouldings. Coved white ceiling cornice; flat gold-painted ceiling divided into panels by white ribs; outer and inner margin panels, the inner margin panels with square angle vents (& similar vent in centre of each long side). Large gold-painted rectangular centre panel, subdivided into end triangular panels and decorative centre rose of six white-painted acanthus leaves inside guilloche border. Three-sided gallery.
Hybrid Gothic seats-cum-box pews: seats with shaped ends, rounded at the top; single-tier stopped and chamfered panel backs; stopped and chamfered pew doors numbered in black and white paint & with three-quarter moulding at the top. Paired block of 12 pews depth in centre, numbered 26-36 (37 removed) on N., and 38-49 on S.. On each side, raked lateral blocks of pews face at right angles into the centre of the chapel, numbered 1-3 and 7-25 (4-6 missing) on N. And 50-73 on S.; the fronts of the pews along the aisles faced with 2 tiers of stopped and chamfered panels. Each side from the vestibule end, a single block of pews of 3-pews depth with two-panel backs. 2ndly and 3rdly, 2 paired blocks of pews of 3-pews depth. 4thly, a single block of pews, of 4-pews depth on S., and nos 1-3, with a gap at the back, on N..
Curved Sedd Fawr enclosure up 1 step; faced externally with stopped and chamfered panels below a low turned baluster parapet with smooth handrail & with full-height turned standards at intervals. Bench seat with red-felt cover. Lateral door with brass catch. 2 curving flights of stairs to pulpit, flanked by turned balusters, and by panelled square newels with cross in centre circlet and Jacobethan type finial. Front of pulpit projection has similar balustrading set on a curve next to the pulpit stairs. Mahogany? Pulpit projection with canted sides; moulded panels below string and saltire and fretwork panels above; lectern. Moulded panelling on rear wall of pulpit dais with ?mahogany arch over (panelled pilasters, uncut brackets), framing white panel with inset memorial to The Reverend Evan Phillips (1829-1912). Ist World War memorial tablet to l.h. Of pulpit (pedimented; white marble on black ground); similar memorial on r.h. To The Reverend John Morgan Jones (1881-1942), Minister from 1922-42.
Three-sided gallery front of openwork iron panels, curved at intersections; moulded wood cornice; gallery beam supported on iron columns; integral circular clock. Raked gallery seating. Pews as below but with two-tier panel backs; separate numbering sequence (up to 45). On each side from Sedd Fawr end, 1stly, a single block of pews of 4-pews depth; 2ndly a paired block of pews of 3-pews depth with wall bench at rear. 3rdly, part-paired and part-tripled block of pews, 3-pews depth, part of it curved round gallery intersection, and here of varying seat widths. A gangway to rear of these with 2 further curved seats behind, with two-panel backs. End of the gallery with paired block of seats of 6-pews depth with two-panel backs.
Grassed areas to sides of chapel and on E. Of ashphalt forecourt. C19 stone boundary wall with rough hewn blocks of stone as coping along Church Lane, and returning at each end. Church Lane entrance with square gate piers of shallow blocks of dressed stone; contrasting band of ashlar; band of fluting below pyramidal caps. C19 iron gates with uprights with tripartite finials rising alternately to above lock and top rails; saltire bracing below lock rail. At vestry entrance to forecourt: earlier C19 silver-painted iron gates and railings; painted square gate piers with pyramidal coping; railings to outer sides. Gates with braces; lozenges in lock rail; uprights alternately to lock and top rails; spike and scroll finials above lock rail; twist and scroll finials above curved top rail.
Single-storey & detached vestry with link-wing on SE. To former chapel house. Walls similarly coloured & finished as to to chapel. Slate roof. Forecourt elevation with centre gabled porch (disused) with cusped and triangular panelled bargeboard; lamp bracket attached to blind oculus over semi-circular headed doorway with archivolt and stuccoed pilasters. 2 steps to segmentally-headed doorway with wooden-boarded door and fanlight of 2 semi-quadrants. Paired semi-circular headed window of single-light each side with common cills and raised stucco dressings. Lower wing set back on SE., part-vestry and part former chapel house; each with inner sash window with horns; outer wooden-boarded door with overlight to vestry. 2-storey, 3-bay former chapel house; pebbledash; slate roof; yellow brick stack; sash windows; central mid or late-C20 door.
Vestry interior: outer room, part-kitchen, in single-storey wing; pale-green painted plaster walls and white-painted plaster ceiling; linoleum sheet floor (herringbone parquet design). 2 doors, each of 4 panels, lead into vestry which has matchboarded dado, pale-green painted walls, 5-bay white-painted ceiling with sloping sides and trusses with collars and curved braces. Window openings with splayed reveals and white-painted cills. On NW. Dais: mid-C19 chair as to chapel pulpit, flanked by benches with shaped ends and three-panel backs. Table with lectern. Photo of Minister in chapel pulpit, the pulpit arch then apparently with pale /white-painted frame. Open-sided bench seats each side of centre aisle; flat-topped and shaped ends with three-panel backs; 9 on forecourt side and 8 on other; a few with red felt strip covers with fleur-de-lys and crosses. 3 iron-framed benches either side at back, stamped "Richard Smith Padiham"; plank seats and backs-cum-desks.
OMJ
15/12/95-6/2/96
Visited 15/12/95 by kind permission of the Chapel Secretary
Sources: forthcoming "Buildings of Dyfed" by J.Orbach and T.Lloyd. Cardigan & Tivyside Advertiser, 20/5/1870; 27/6/1890; 6/10/1911; 18/10/1929. - Built: 1820 Source:Horsfall-Turner
- Built: 1820 Source:Cadw (plaque)
- Cause: 1778 Source:Horsfall-Turner
- 1st Resident Minister: 1860-1912 Source:Cadw
- Rebuilt: 1869 Source:Horsfall-Turner
- Rebuilt: 1869 Source:Cadw (plaque)
- Schoolroom Built: c.1900 Source:Cadw (plaque)
- Converted To Flats: 2000 Source:BOW
- : 1869 Source:
- Minister: 1860-1912 Evan Phillips,
- Architect: 1869 Thomas Thomas, Landore
- £ 2500: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- 170: 1905 Accomodation (RCCEORBWM)
- 750: 1905 Sittings (RCCEORBWM)
- Disused: 1995 (Site visit - O M Jenkins)
- Converted: 2000 To flats ()
- Materials
- Rendered
- Monument Type: CHAPEL
- Form: Building
- Style: Baroque
- Plan: Gable Entry
- Window Glazing: Small Pane
- Windows: Tall Round-Headed
Key Details of this Chapel
Key Dates of this Chapel
Key People in this Chapel History
Costs during this Chapels History
Capacities during this Chapels History
Changes of Status its History
Key Characteristics of this Chapel
Images from Coflein
Map
- Grid Reference: SN30814070
- Address: CHURCH STREET, NEWCASTLE EMLYNNEWCASTLE EMLYN
9 thoughts on “Bethel Chapel (calvinistic Methodist), Church Street, Newcastle Emlyn”
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Passing through Newcastle Emlyn came across this building, a pretty building!
And another!
Another!
The vestry?
Services were being held there after the sale of the chapel, but maybe not any more?
It looks as if it still is, it looks as if the front part still is in use as a Chapel with the back as flats
One lonely gravestone!
Hello
My great great grandparents were married in Kinnerton Chapel in Old Radnor on 21st May1850. I have been searching for information on the Chapel, so was pleased to find this website. I have now located it on Google Street View – looks like someone is ‘doing it up’ to live in: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.2612635,-3.1095337,3a,90y,232.95h,84.26t/data=!3m9!1e1!3m7!1s-8DWPORkq2RFVNXBLde_-g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!9m2!1b1!2i53?hl=en-GB
The marriage record of my ancestors Abraham Bounds and Elizabeth Williams is attached. I hope it is of interest.
All the best
Saira
Dear Sara
Thank you for the information. I am glad to hear that it was some help to you.
Good luck on your continued search
Christine